The possible usefulness of computer poetry is concerned with what the programmer can learn about language, about poetry, and about poets. The problems in designing computer programs to construct poetry include considerations in generating well-formed sentences which have the added restrictions that poetry requires: meter, rhyme, logic, diction, subject matter, and imagery. These restrictions are phonological and semantic. At the present stage of development of semantic theory, such linguistic features as imagery are of minor interest for poetry generation. The basic difficulty in poetry generation is introducing enough uncertainty to insure variety in the resultant output without violating the constraints that govern well-formed sentences. Numerous linguistic restrictions can be added to computer programs to refine the poetic output. Generating computer poetry underlines the curious behavior of familiar words in unfamiliar combinations. In poetry, metaphor is readily accepted as an alternative to calling a sentence nonsensical. Metaphor is thought to be the special creation of the poet; this presents a curious problem when the poet is a computer. (Author/VM)

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